Chapter One: Spirited Away
Part Five
The US Space Shuttle Intrepid, 1998.
David couldn't believe it. They'd actually stopped The Dragit's plan to wipe out the cities of Earth. His lunar base was destroyed behind them, and Earth was safe. He couldn't stop smiling. He wish his Mom and Rafe could have seen him--
"Well where is it?" Major Stark asked, leaning on Sergeant Romar's shoulder.
"Where's what?" David asked, turning back to face him, spinning in the zero-gravity of the shuttle.
"The champagne," Romar answered, smiling.
David grinned. "I guess you'll have to settle for Tang."
Stark laughed, then winced as the motion hurt his side.
Romar directed him towards the door. "Come on, let's take a look at that wound."
Doc turned to David and placed his hands on his shoulders. "You did good, kid. Real good."
David smiled in return as Doc took his hands away. "Thanks, Doc."
They pushed off the floor and made their way to the ladder that led to the control room of the shuttle.
"Jim!" David shouted. "Jim! Did you see it?"
His friend laughed. "Are you kidding? It was like the fourth of July!" He pushed off the seats at the controls to come closer to David and Doc. He was holding an Ooshati com-orb in his hand. "Hey David," he said, holding out the orb. "Someone wants to talk to you."
"Ooshati vessel?" Jim spoke into the orb. "This is Intrepid."
"This is the Ooshati vessel," a deep, smooth voice responded.
"He's here, sir." Jim said into the orb, and handed it to David.
"Who is it?" David asked, taking it from him.
"David Oosha?" the voice said. David looked into the orb, but the face was shrouded in darkness. "Is it really you?"
"Yes…?" David said uncertainly. He held the orb closer to him, and suddenly the face came into the light.
It was like looking in a mirror. "David."
"Father?" David asked, straining to keep his voice from trembling. His dark-haired, kingly father stood looking back at him through the orb. "You're alive?" Cale-Oosha had lost an eye in the many battles, but despite that, and despite the long pony-tail hanging over his shoulder, he looked exactly like David.
A soft smile spread over Cale-Oosha's lips. "I'm so very proud of you."
David closed his eyes to stem the tears that threatened to flow, holding the orb tightly in his fingers.
"What the—?!"
Jim's shout caused David's eyes to fly open. He turned, then shifted the orb to his right hand only and flung his left arm over his eyes.
"David?" his father's voice came. "What's going on? What's that light—"
A shining doorway of light hung in the air before them – David could only just make three figures silhouetted before it.
Suddenly there was a sharp pain in his neck. "Ah!" His hand went to his neck, where he pulled out three thin darts. He threw them to the ground, and tossing the com-orb from his right to left hand, he stretched out his fingers.
But there was something in the darts. His head began to swim, and he began to lose feeling in his toes and fingertips. The feeling crept up his legs and his arms. He crumpled.
The orb rolled from his fingers onto the floor.
He distantly heard Jim's voice, Doc's voice. His father's voice. They were all shouting the same thing.
"DAVID!"
England, 1999
"Harry?"
"Shh," Harry Potter placed a finger to his lips and nodded down at the sleeping baby in his lap.
Ginny Weasley smiled softly and sat next to him. She looked over the lawns near the Burrow, the Weasley residence, up at the clear blue July sky, and then down at the blue-haired little boy in Harry's arms.
The boy, of course, was Teddy Lupin, Harry's godson. He spent a few days a week with Harry, who lived with the Weasleys when he wasn't working in the Auror's Department. He couldn't bring himself to move back into Sirius' place just yet. The rest of the time, Teddy lived with his grandmother, Andromeda Tonks.
A soft breeze picked up and ruffled Harry's jet black, untidy hair across his forehead, revealing a lightning-bolt shaped scar.
"I can't believe it's been a year," Harry said softly.
Ginny nodded. A year since the last battle at Hogwarts, a year since Voldemort had been killed, a year since…since Fred, Lupin, Tonks…. She shook her head slightly, sending her red hair waving, and leaned her head against Harry's shoulder.
They sat like that for a long time, silently.
Smoke from a chimney a long way off bent and wavered in the breeze; the Gnomes in the garden were sleeping in a weedy patch.
Ginny lifted her head from Harry's shoulder as she heard the door creak open. Her mother and Andromeda Tonks were standing in the doorway. She touched Harry's shoulder lightly, and he nodded. He gently lifted Teddy up, and Ginny took him, marveling at how much heavier a baby was when he was sleeping.
Harry stuck his wand in his back pocket and stood, dusting grass off his jeans, and followed Ginny towards the door.
A sudden strong gust of wind caused Harry to stumble slightly and as he recovered, a blinding white light issued from behind him.
He whirled.
Dark shapes were leaping out of a hanging door of light in the air, and they were armed.
Harry whisked his wand out of his back pocket and turning, pointed it at Ginny and Teddy. "Protego Totalum!" he shouted, and a near-invisible bubble surrounded them. Now that those two were shielded, he turned to the strangers. One of them raised their weapon – it was still hard to see exactly what it was – and prepared to fire.
"Stupefy!" Harry shouted. Red light shot from his wand and hit the man squarely in the chest, sending him reeling to the ground. The other men looked down at him temporarily, then both raised their weapons, aiming at Harry.
"Stupe—" Harry began, but suddenly another man, dressed in blue white and black with a conical Chinese hat appeared in front of him. He must have apparated! Before Harry could utter another syllable, the man raised a thin-barreled gun and fired. Five or six darts stuck in Harry's neck.
From within the shield of the protego charm, Ginny saw Harry sink to his knees. "HARRY!" she screamed, and whipped out her own wand. She raced out of the bubble, leaving a crying Teddy on the lawn. She was about to shout out the Bat-Bogey Hex when a sudden cloud of smoke erupted in the area. "NO! HARRY!"
Although the smoke was thick, she could still see the light of the hanging door. "HARRY!" she screamed.
Then suddenly, the light was gone. And with it, Harry Potter.
They learned that the girl's name was Hikaru Shidou. She was from Tokyo, but currently resided in a parallel world to Tokyo known as Cephiro, of which she was the "pillar."
Upon questioning of what she meant by this, she replied that her strength of heart, her loyalty, her love kept the world of Cephiro from literally crumbling.
"I need to get back!" she said. "Cephiro could be falling apart right now! And what if Umi and Fuu need me?"
"Umi and Fuu?" Batman asked.
"My sisters—well, they're not really my sisters. They're my best friends. I hope they're okay," she added quietly, looking down at her manacled hands.
"I'm sure they're fine," Alex replied, stooping down and sitting next to her.
"Do you have a sister?" she asked, looking up at him.
"Uh…no…I don't have any siblings. But my master's daughter is like a little sister to me. She's about your age."
"Don't worry, Hikaru," Goliath said in a comforting voice. "We're going to get you back home."
She did not seem frightened in the least by the Gargoyle, and smiled half-heartedly up at him.
"Ain't right," Logan remarked gruffly to Ripley. They stood some distance away from the others. "She shouldn't be here."
"None of us should be here," Ripley replied.
"Yeah." Logan tried to nod, then scowled, gazing downwards at his bound arms.
"Hey Trunks." Ripley said as the half-Saiyan walked by.
"Ripley?" He asked, turning towards her.
"How's Carin?"
"Okay, I guess." The three of them gazed over at Carin, who was sitting in the corner next to Goku and Captain America.
It had taken hours for Carin to settle, if one could call her current state "settled."
Goku learned that Carin had two children not much older than Hikaru that had once been kidnapped, and so she was extremely affected by the girl's presence.
She had done her best to remain calm at least on the outside while helping to explain the situation, but could not ignore the anger that clawed at her insides.
And matters only became worse when the next two arrived.
There was no word that Superman could think of to describe Carin's current state. Her reaction when Hikaru had arrived had been minimal in comparison to when the two boys arrived. She'd blown her stack.
He had no idea what she had shouted at Scorpion. But she'd been screaming at the top of her lungs, and the words she'd used didn't sound friendly. At the end of her rant, as Scorpion was leaving, she'd forced herself to speak in English.
"You've gone too far," she'd hissed, her alien accent deep. "When I get out of here, you had better watch your back. No number of ninjas will be able to stop me."
Superman thought Scorpion had actually looked unnerved, though it was hard to tell with so little of the ninja's face showing. In any case, the yellow-clad warrior left hurriedly.
Presently, he and Captain America were making sure the boys were alright, and were trying to wake them. He kept glancing at Carin, who stood alone, arms crossed, with her back to them. He knew she wasn't trying to be difficult, only trying to calm herself, and turned back to the boys.
They looked about the same age, and both had black hair. One had glasses, cracked and askew on his face. His hair was very messy – not unclean, but it stuck up at strange angles. A lightning-bolt shaped scar showed where the hair parted on his forehead.
The other's hair was much neater. His eyes were very peculiar, however; they were much longer and narrower than a normal Human's, and slightly slanted. He, unlike the other boy, who wore jeans and a sweater, was dressed in a blue jumpsuit.
Batman peered at the logo on the shoulder, then cast a perplexed look at Superman. "NASA."
"NASA?" Superman repeated, raising an eyebrow. "He's a little young to be working there, don't you think?"
Batman nodded.
"NASA?" Trunks echoed.
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration," the Dark Knight answered distantly. He looked up at Superman again. "Do you think he's from our world?"
Superman shook his head slowly. "I…don't think so. You and I were brought here together, and we're from the same world. Captain America and Logan were brought together, and they're from the same place. And Alex and Necro."
Batman nodded. "Another parallel world?"
"Looks that way."
They fell silent as Hikaru approached and knelt next to the boy with the glasses. She looked down at him, a soft, sad expression on her face. Gingerly, she reached down and straightened the spectacles.
All of a sudden she jumped backwards as he breathed in sharply.
His eyelids flew open to reveal emerald-green eyes, and he scrambled away in a crab-like fashion, reaching for his jeans pocket. When he saw that his hands were manacled and whatever he had been reaching for was gone, his eyes flew in all directions. "Who are you?" he asked. His voice held a British accent. "Where am I? What—" His breath caught as he backed into something, and his head jerked upwards. His mouth parted and his eyes widened in surprise as he rolled over onto his feet.
Above him towered the massive form of Goliath, who raised his eyebrow ridges in question.
Standing, the boy slowly backed away. He looked from Goliath to the others behind him and backed into the farthest corner.
"Don't be afraid, son." Captain America said. "We're not going to hurt you. We were captured and brought here just like you."
"They shot you with the darts, right?" Alex asked.
The boy nodded, then swallowed. "Where am I?" he repeated.
"We don't exactly know," Trunks said apologetically. "Ninjas attacked each of us and brought us here. We—" He gestured to himself, Goku and Carin – "have been here a whole day. I'm Trunks Briefs. This is Son Goku, and that's Carin Darkstar."
"What's your name?" Hikaru asked.
His eyes fixed on the small red-headed girl. "Harry Potter," he said hesitantly.
"Where are you from, Harry?" Samus asked.
"England," he answered. "Where…where's my wand?"
"Wand?" Alex exchanged looks with Necro. A smile twitched at his mouth. "Like a magic wand?"
His sentence nearly ended in a laugh, but it was cut off by Harry's blunt "Yes."
"You can perform magic?" Carin asked, turning. Her voice was hoarse from all the yelling she had done, and she looked utterly exhausted.
Harry nodded slowly.
"Are you a warlock?"
"A wizard."
"How old are you, Harry?"
"I'm almost eighteen."
She raised her manacled hands to her face and rubbed her eyes with her index finger and thumb. "So young…." She raised her head again and opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by movement of the other boy.
His eyes opened. They were a strange, blue-grey, remarkably clear in color. When he didn't recognize his surroundings, he reacted in a very similar fashion to Harry. He somersaulted backwards; Batman noted that from the way he moved, he was naturally acrobatic. His motions were fluid and extremely well-balanced, strong.
He moved away from them all and as he stared at them, something occurred that startled them all.
His eyes' retinas seemed to turn inside out and back again, glowing a startling, speckled blue. His eyes widened as this took place, as if he had not meant for it to happen. After a second, it had passed, the retinas had gone back to their original places.
Everyone stood in silence for a moment while the boy's eyes wandered in all directions, pausing on every face. "Who are you?" he asked. His voice was a smooth alto-toned one, but it held an undercurrent of fear. His eyes lingered on Goliath.
The Gargoyle sensed the fear that he was so used to emanating from the boy, and folded his wings tightly around him to try and make himself appear smaller. "Do not be afraid," he said as soothingly as he could. "We are friends."
"Are—are you some kind of Alien?" the boy asked.
Goliath shook his head. "No. I am a Gargoyle. You may call me Goliath."
"Are you an Alien?" Hikaru asked.
The soft voice of the girl distracted him from Goliath. He stared at her, and found himself answering, "Yes." Then he caught himself. He gazed around the faces in the room. "No….I'm….half."
"My name is Hikaru Shidou," she said, smiling. Her braid whipped over her shoulder as she bowed, her hands at her sides. "What's yours?"
He swallowed. Where am I? Who ARE these people? Should I tell them who I am? They're all handcuffed, like me. Were they captured too? Should I ask? "My name is David Carter," he said after a few moments. "Were…were you all kidnapped too?"
"Yes, we were." Samus answered.
"Are you from Earth?" Batman asked. "Your suit is from NASA."
"Yeah, I'm from Earth! Aren't…aren't you?" He cast another look at Goliath, then glanced at Necro uncertainly.
"Most of us are from Earth, David," Captain America said. "All except Lieutenant Ripley, Samus Aran…" He gestured to each of them in turn, "Carin Darkstar, Master Chief and the Marine. I'm Captain America. I'm from Earth, but…I'm from the year 1943."
"What?" David and Harry said simultaneously, and looked at one another.
"I'm from 1994," Logan said. "What years are you two from?"
David fixed his gaze on Harry. "Did you just get here or something?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "I woke up right before you did."
"Well?" Logan said.
"It's 1999 where I come from," Harry said.
"1998 for me," David said quietly. "Whoa…." He backed up until he hit the wall, the slid down until he was sitting. He shifted his stare from Harry to Captain America. "What's going on?"
"We've been captured from different worlds and realities," Carin said, walking closer. "We don't know why, we don't know by whom. We don't even know where we are. Ninjas drugged us all and brought us here. I've been here an entire day, with Trunks and Son Goku."
"Different worlds and realities?" Harry echoed. He lifted his hands to run his fingers through his hair, but lowered them again when he remembered the manacles.
"I know it's a lot to take in," Goku said, "But—"
"They're coming again!" Superman nearly shouted. "More captives?"
Everyone rushed to the walls on either side, and Harry and David, although confused, followed suit.
"Hit the switch!" Scorpion's familiar harsh voice came.
Instantly, everyone was chained to the wall.
"Don't struggle," Superman called to David and Harry. "We've tried everything to get out of them – it's no use."
Scorpion walked in with Subzero; they supported a man in white robes and brown leggings between them. They dragged him to the middle of the room and deposited him on the floor there.
He had blond hair that fell just short of his shoulders and fell in locks over his forehead. He was tanned as if he had spent years outside, and had scars on his hands and face. This man was a fighter of some sort.
A defender, Carin thought, recalling Captain America's words.
Scorpion and Subzero began to leave, but Johnny Cage's voice rang down the hallway. "Wait! We have the last one!"
"About time," Scorpion hissed.
Goku and Carin exchanged looks; everyone stared at each other.
The last one?
3-1-2008 Johnny Cage and another ninja in black with a cybernetic-looking helmet came walking in, supporting what looked like a cowboy between them.
The eyes of those who were familiar with Earth's history widened as they took his appearance in; he was dressed in dirty blue jeans, cowboy boots and a tattered grey Confederate jacket and hat. He had white hair that fell just below his shoulders, and his skin was very tan, as if he spent long hours in the sun each day.
When the two ninjas laid him down, they got their first good look at his face, and Samus wasn't the only one who gasped.
The right side of his face was horribly disfigured; it was covered in scars, and the eye was very round and at least twice the size of the other. His lips on that side of his face looked as if they had been burned away and showed the better part of his teeth; all that was left was a string of skin that stretched from the bottom of his cheek to the area just below where his lip used to be.
"Subzero, Smoke! Hurry up, will you!" Scorpion spat.
The two ninjas left the man next to the other and turned to leave.
"Leavin' so soon?" A gritty voice asked behind them, and they turned.
Two hard fists collided with the side of Smoke's helmet, and the cords that went from his helmet to his back became unattached. He gagged and fell to the ground, writhing, as smoke hissed out of the tubes.
Subzero turned and just before he stretched out his hand, the cowboy turned and punched him with both fists in the gut. A noise like air gushing from a balloon came from the ninja and he went down, holding his ribs.
"Get over here!" Scorpion bellowed, and from his wrist shot a spiked cord, which wrapped around the cowboy's wrists. He yanked him forward, but he did not fall; he merely stumbled.
Scorpion reeled him in until he was close enough to hit. The cowboy however, had plans of his own and suddenly kicked up his boot. The ninjas had been careless and had left the cowboy with one weapon – his spurs.
The spur caught Scorpion full in the side of the face and raked upwards. The ninja screamed in anger as his hand flew to his face; the cowboy grasped the rope that held his wrists and yanked as hard as he could, causing Scorpion to fall.
As the man unwound himself from the ninja's rope, the other, white-robed man began to wake.
Subzero sat up painfully, and ran towards the door. "Help! Skywalker is waking and Hex is loose!" he yelled.
"Jonah Hex!" Batman said to Superman. "I knew I recognized him!"
"You know him?" Superman asked.
"I'll explain later," Batman said. "He was a bounty hunter – it's rumored that he was responsible for killing 336 people single-handedly."
Superman uttered a small whistle, then turned his attention back to the matters at hand. With his super-hearing, he caught the sound of several footsteps approaching. "HEX!" he shouted. "Get out of here! Take him and run!"
Jonah Hex turned to them and after seeing Batman nodded and bent over the man which Subzero had called "Skywalker."
"Hold on, boy," he said. The man nodded, then shook his head as if trying to clear it.
"Not so fast," came Scorpion's voice. His face and mask were torn, but instead of blood and muscle, the white bone of a skull showed through the gash. Smoke began to pour from his bony jaws, and he breathed in deeply, rearing back as if he were about to spit or blow something from his mouth.
"Stand down Scorpion!"
"Raiden!" Scorpion hissed, whirling.
Jonah Hex laid Skywalker down and balled his fists. "More of yeh? Alright, have it yer way." With a yell, he ran forward, intending to tackle them both.
With swift movements, Raiden grabbed the still-writhing Smoke off the floor, snatched the back of Scorpion's suit and backed out of the door, closing it behind him.
"THE DOOR IS BOOBY-TRAPPED!" the Marine yelled.
Jonah Hex skidded to a halt so violently that he slipped and fell just short of the doorway.
The ninjas stood looking at him through the door; Subzero and a ninja in green had plugged Smoke's tubes into his back again and he was recovering.
Raiden smashed his fist against something they could not see, and from their places on the wall, the entire company fell to the floor.
Jonah Hex whipped off his hat and threw it to the floor, then proceeded to throw out such profanities as if there were no tomorrow.
Carin gasped and clamped her hands over Hikaru's ears, who merely looked startled. "SIR!" she bellowed.
Jonah Hex's spew of cusses stopped short and he turned to see Carin's disapproving glare. "Whut--? Oh." He touched his hand to his brow. "Sorry ma'am. Didn't know there were ladies present." He looked down at Hikaru. "Sorry, missie."
Hikaru smiled at him. "It's okay."
"Are you alright?"
Superman's voice caused them to turn. He was kneeling next to Skywalker, who nodded. "Yes. Thank you."
"Your name is Skywalker?"
He nodded. "Luke Skywalker. Where am I?"
"We don't—"
"AND THESE NIMRODS DIDN'T HAVE THE SENSE TO TAKE HIS SPURS! HE STILL HAS THEM!"
Scorpion's bellows cut clearly through the transparent door, and all twenty of the defenders looked through it to see him exasperatedly pointing inside the room.
"Calm yourself, Scorpion." A quiet male voice said, and a figure that some of them recognized came into view. It was the young man with the seaweed-green hair, the one that had spoken to them over some kind of intercom.
"But his spurs—"
"It does not matter now. Go."
"But—"
"Go," the young man said more sternly.
Raiden and Scorpion bowed their heads very slightly and with the rest of the ninjas, left. The young man looked inside the doorway, and then, to their astonishment, walked through the door and into their presence.
As he entered, he held up his hands, and the air shimmered and wavered in front of him, as if a bubble surrounded him. "Please be calm. Everything is going to be explained now. My name is Kohaku," he said politely, bowing but never taking his eyes off of them, "But you may call me Haku."
AUTHORS NOTES
The dialogue from "Well where is it?" to "I'm so very proud of you" is (c) Dreamworks' "Invasion America," Episode 13.
Goku, Trunks (c) Akira Toriyama's Dragonball Z
Carin (c) Silvre (Karyn N. Anderson)
Batman, Superman and Jonah Hex (c) DC Comics
John Connor (c) The Terminator movie series
Ripley (c) 20th Century Fox's "Alien" movies
The Marine and The Master Chief (c) Bungie
Steve Rogers (Captain America) and Logan (Wolverine) (c) Marvel Comics
Samus Aran (c) Nintendo's Metroid
Necro and Alex (c) CAPCOM's Street Fighter
Goliath (c) Disney's Gargoyles
Hikaru (c) CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth
Harry Potter (c) J.K. Rowling
David Carter (c) Dreamworks' "Invasion America"
Luke Skywalker (c) LucasFilm's "Star Wars"
Raiden, Scorpion, Subzero, Johnny Cage, Smoke and all ninjas (c) Midway's "Mortal Kombat"
Kohaku/Haku (c) Miyazaki's "Spirited Away"